Determination

I held her close, feeling the warmth of her small body. Her rib cage rose and fell, pressed against my side. Could I even detect her heartbeat? I thought I maybe could. We lay naked in my bed. Me on my back, propped up on pillows. Her curled up next to me in the crook of my arm. Her head on my chest. Her palm resting lightly on my stomach. Her soft breath and blonde locks both tickling my skin. I stroked her side. If she had started purring, I would not have been surprised.

Her eyes had been closed, but now she opened them. Their color seemed to vary according to the angle of her head and the incident light. Now pale gray. Now light blue. Now a slight greenish tinge. She had large eyes, arresting eyes, almost startling eyes. She blinked at me and shifted her head so our lips met. She smelled of me. She tasted of me.

Clearly something was on her mind as she moved to straddle me, her hands placed either side of my head. Bending forward she kissed me again. Now with greater intensity, her tongue probing. Parallel intensity began to rise in me. I placed a hand behind her head and pulled her to me, my other hand stroking her back. I felt her tremble slightly at the touch of my finger-tips. She bit softly on my lower lip, pulling it outwards. Then we parted.

Shuffling her knees further down my body, she knelt back and surveyed me with those oversized eyes.

"You're a pretty girl, Emily. I know you don't think so, but you are. I get lost in your eyes."

I smiled.

"Well I guess you are well-placed to judge. Though maybe I question your current objectivity."

She flashed teeth in a grin and leant forward to circle the modest curves of one of my breasts and then the other, using the same hand in a figure eight; palm and back, palm and back. She mirrored this action with her other hand, stroking her own flesh, enjoying her own skin as well as mine. Moving forward onto all fours again she placed a ring of soft kisses around each of my breasts in turn. I wriggled slightly, both as her touch thrilled and in anticipation of what might be next.

What was next was her tongue, drawing intricate epitrochoid designs in spittle around my areolae. I felt my nipples tingle and contract, become hardened mini towers. She took each small erection in her mouth and sucked. Bared her teeth and dragged them up my nipples, scoring pleasure into me. Reaching back, she placed a hand between my legs and stroked lightly. I returned the favor, her smooth hairless skin a tactile delight.

Again she shifted backwards and settled between my legs. Raising my knees. Parting my thighs. But not just my thighs, also my labia. Her pink tongue connected with my pink opening. Flicking in and out, up and down. Stiffening her tongue, she pushed it into me. Her lips met mine, her nose brushed my clit. I pulled her head towards me, her tongue deeper inside me. Again adjusting her position slightly, she returned to lapping at my vaginal opening, her fingers finding my clitoris and beginning to send me coded messages via it. Her finger-tips pushed and rubbed and rolled and I sank into my pillows, head straining backwards, neck curving, embracing the pleasure of fingers and tongue.

And then a reversal, digits now probing my pussy. One. Two. Mmm... Three. Her tongue circling, lapping, flicking. Heat. Heat increasing. Breath deepening. Biting my own lip now. My fingers stretching and pinching nipples, squeezing breasts. She was good. She was very, very good. Small yelps, unpremeditated, uncontrolled. Involuntary intonation of little ecstasies, bubbling inexorably upwards. Merging, surging, exploding. I pushed myself up off the mattress, preparing for the inevitable.

Then her fingers grew and lengthened in me. They merged into a single limb, thick and sinuous, thrusting in and out, in and out. The timing was perfect, my needs flawlessly anticipated and I came on cue. Eyes closed, mouth wide open in silent protest at the unbearable and animal flowing through me, turning me inside out, baring my soul to the Universe.

Fighting to get my breath back, I felt her withdraw. Opening my eyes, I saw... well me... me sitting between my legs. The dirty blonde hair, the moon-shaped face, the freckles. The tiny, skinny body. The small pert breasts, one with a birthmark under it; partnered by a second on my, or rather her, abdomen. And the one arm ending in a pulsing, coiling, cream-covered tentacle where a hand should have been.

"I knew you wanted deeper penetration, Emily. But now I sense you are displeased."

It was complicated. I took a few more deep breaths, trying to center myself. I had something to say, but started to say it shakily, my heart still thumping.

"You're right. What you did pushed me over the edge perfectly. It was exactly what I needed. But, we'd have got there anyway in another twenty seconds. Maybe it would have been nice to stay in character, you know, like we agreed."

The facsimile of my face and body dissolved and reformed into a sheepish looking giant octopus (if I human can look sheepish, I claim a coleoid can as well). A giant octopus that was blushing red, the color pulsating across his skin.

"I'm sorry, Emily. I so want to please you. It's hard not to give you what you want, when you want it."

I relented a little, he looked so mortified. I had learnt how to decode cephalopod moods pretty well in the last few months.

"It's OK, David. It was perfect. Just maybe too perfect. It might be nice to maybe work a bit more for my orgasms. I know you can't turn off your telepathy..."

He winced at my imprecise terminology (you can tell an octopus is wincing by a complex green and yellow pattern coursing across his head and down his tentacles), but thought better of saying anything. He can read my mind after all and I really wasn't in the mood.

"...but you don't have to act on it. Fingers and tongue would have been fine. Would have been nice. Would have felt... I don't know... more real maybe."

His head now had bands of blue and white traversing it slowly. Oh, no! I've hurt his feelings. I might not be telepathic, but it was easy enough to discern David's mood.

"And you didn't get to cum either. Poor you. I know you are doing your best. Let me do something for you."

David, as was his custom, was hovering four feet off the floor. I stood and placed a kiss on his domed head. Then I knelt in front of him and lifted a tentacle to my mouth, while gripping one in either hand. The first appendage extended itself deep into my mouth; becoming rod-like and starting to thrust in and out. I tilted my head to allow him access to my throat. The tentacles in my hands were warm and soft and smooth, but now secreted an oil-like substance, allowing me to massage them.

I let David face-fuck me and jerked his tentacles until I felt a familiar spasming and warm, sticky, salty fluid poured into my stomach. It didn't take long, he had already been close. I had noticed that being me was always a big turn-on for him. My molluskan friend clearly had either a pretty heavy transsexual kink, or got off on aping an ape as much as he enjoyed fucking less evolved species. His body shimmered with flowing, twisting colors as he used me to sate his rather complex appetites.

My cheeks bulged and David's semen simulacrum spurted from between my distended lips and his swollen limb. Had he overestimated my capacity? No, he didn't make mistakes like that. It was obviously the effect he was going for. He was a rather twisted octopus, not that I was complaining.

As his tentacle slithered out of me with a slight whip, I disgorged more of his ejaculate. His skin pulsed chromatically in obvious delight at my milky emesis. Trust me to meet the only perverted, sentient, space-cephalopod. I attract the type. And yes, I know you're listening, David. Fuck you!

"Thanks Emily, you always make me cum so hard. Sorry you're annoyed with me."

I stalked towards the shower.

"Let's talk later. Can I have some privacy? Mental as well as physical."

So I'm Wilson. You know my first name already. I am, or perhaps more accurately was, the lowly Third Mate of this space freighter I call home. There is a crew of twelve, eleven of them have been in their cryogenic chambers for some time now. David and I decided to let them have their rest. They are perfectly fine. We just didn't wake one of them up when my fifty day shift ended. David had a chat with the ship's computer and he can be quite convincing. He even got the bitch to stop starting every communication with "Hello, Emily". Frankly it was getting pretty annoying.

He had also done a few other things to alleviate the burden of my work. For example, the ship now pretty much ran itself. Leaving me lots of time for whatever I felt like doing, or having done to me. David was a very obliging octopus really.

Except he wasn't, not really. An octopus that is, he was definitely obliging. He'd explained it to me many times. I'd explained in return that I was blonde, only for him to say he didn't have a clue what hair color had to do with anything. Aliens can be a little trying sometimes with idiom. But I've kinda got it now, let me try to explain to you.

David's species arose in the early days of the Universe, not much after the first stars and the first planets. They had been around for literally eons. Like all life, they were curious and had had a long time to scratch that itch. Millennia ago, they had blown through what the late-coming human race had discovered to date. Then they just kept going. Eventually they figured out the most fundamental layer of matter and energy (apparently, it's not little vibrating strings, that was a really bad idea). Then they worked out how to manipulate this layer, to harness it, to make it bend to their will. They became effectively the BDSM masters and mistresses of matter, all matter.

With such control over the natural world, came control over their bodies as well. They transcended their original, fixed, corporeal forms, instead becoming amorphous collections of fundamental constituents, bound loosely and malleably only by their consciousnesses. Given that what we call the thoughts of lifeforms are just the jiggling of sub-atomic particles, this enabled David's species to both comprehend these and -- if they so chose -- manipulate them. In everyday parlance, they became telepathic shape-shifters with telekinetic powers. He hates it when I dumb down the science, he gets those green and yellow patterns, it's kinda adorable really.

So that's David's species, what about David himself? Well, he's normally an octopus as he likes octopuses. We met, because he had transgressed species law. With power over matter comes great responsibility and it was alleged that David had misused his to, well, get jiggy with other lifeforms. He freely admits to liking other lifeforms. He also claims it was always consensual, but interspecies sex is frowned on in his culture. I guess they aren't quite as evolved as they think. Anyway, he had been banished to interstellar space, which is where my ship had happened to bump into him. That later led to him bumping into me rather a lot. I had loved the experience; he seemed to as well.

I had been lonely, missing real connections in my own life, and we formed an arrangement. One that had been beneficial to both parties. I'd had a blast and had never felt so fulfilled, so why was I chafing against things now? It was obviously amazing fucking a shape-shifting alien who could telepathically anticipate and meet my every single sexual need. But maybe the novelty had worn off. I'm like that, whatever I have, I want the other thing. But what was the other thing, especially out here in interstellar space?

I don't know, maybe I just needed to talk to him about us. What was us even?

We'd slept apart. That wasn't so uncommon. He didn't really sleep as such and had a tendency for his tentacles to wander when I was sleeping next to him. That could be very distracting. But it felt more like he was avoiding me. I guess I knew that he knew I had some worries. It's hard being around a telepath. The next day (we still talked about days, though there was no physical analog out here), he seemed preoccupied, worried even. I thought it best to broach the subject, it's not like I could keep it secret. I decided to start with some easier stuff.

"David, I wanted to talk to you."

Red and pink pulsed through his body, quickly followed by the blue and gray bands that had seemed to feature when he was upset or worried.

"I know you do, Emily."

I bridled.

"Hey, what did we agree about that? I know you can't turn your mind-reading thing off, but you can at least pretend for my benefit, right?"

The red and pink returned briefly.

"You are right. Sorry."

There is nothing sadder than a disconsolate octopus. Maybe we should do this another day.

"No, Emily. Oh no... I did it again! Sorry. But it's not you, or us. I mean I agree we should talk about that, it's important. It's just I had some other news, more a hint of a rumor really. It's probably nothing."

His tone was serious.

"What's going on, David?"

He paused before answering, clearly in two minds (or extended nervous systems, or whatever cephalopods have).

"Look, as I said, it's most probably nothing. OK... You understand how attuned I am to the fundaments of nature. Well your people were right about fields extending indefinitely. I understand the matter around me, what you call fermions. I also understand the force carriers, bosons in your language. But it's not just a local thing. I am, in a sense, plugged into everything. The further away as well as the close by. The far stuff is faint, difficult to pick out, harder to interpret, but it's there."

Again he paused, the blue and gray bands rippling.

"I get almost imperceptible echoes. Echoes mentioning me. It could be nothing. It could be paranoia. But I'm worried that somebody is thinking about me. Maybe more than one body. As I say, it could be nothing, but I've never had this feeling before."

I put my arms round his bulbous head and squeezed.

"I'm sorry. And I'm preoccupied with my own stuff. Are you worried? What do you think it means?"

The eye closest to me swiveled to meet mine.

"I don't know. I suppose I'm worried that it's my own people. That for some reason they are thinking about me after these many millions of years. What does it mean, I have no idea. But it's... unsettling."

I kissed his skin softly and lay my head on his.

"It's OK, Emily. Let's talk about us. Would you be offended if I spoke about what I think? I know it can seem intrusive."

"In these circumstances, I think it's OK. Tell me, what's been on my mind?"

A brief pattern of color appeared, danced and disappeared. He tended to like my little jokes. I sat down on the edge of my bunk.

"So, Emily. I guess -- OK I know - you feel we have fallen into a bit of a rut. Maybe having all your needs met gets a bit stifling. I think I get that. But I think -- sorry know -- that there are a couple of underlying things. Is it OK if I go on?"

It struck me that telepathic octopuses would make a killing as therapists. A recurrence of the brief pattern showed he found the thought amusing too.

"Well first, what just happened. I think you are finding your every thought being transparently visible to me rather wearing. Invasive. Maybe even non-consensual. I like pleasing you, but I have never and would never manipulate you. But I get it. There are a couple of things we could consider, but I'll come back to that."

He was right of course and it was also annoying.

"I know, Emily. It feels unequal. That's the word. I'll come back to it."

Well I guess recognizing a problem is a start.

"Go on. What about the second point?"

Again the pause, a longer one.

"Us"

"Us?"

"Us, Emily. You want to know about us."

This was no surprise, the thought had been to the forefront of my mind. Easy to read, I suppose.

"OK, so what do I think about us?"

"Confused, Emily, confused... Shall I go on?"

I nodded.

"You wonder what us means. You wonder what the future is. You wonder what I feel about you. You wonder if this is sustainable. You basically wonder a lot."

It was my turn to pause.

"Is it any surprise. I guess a part of it goes back to the word 'unequal'. It's not just the telepathy, though that is deeply annoying. And, yes, invasive."

He did his version of blushing again.

"But it's other stuff. Let's start with the age gap. As I understand it, you were around when there were T. rex stomping about on Earth. More relevantly, I've got, what? Another 75 years. Do you even die?"

"We do. Eventually. But your point is valid still."

"And then there's your superpowers. Don't look at me like that, you know what I mean! I never had a boyfriend who could..."

I stopped myself. There it was, as clear as the freckles on my face.

"It's OK, Emily. I think of you as my girlfriend too. I hope you don't mind."

I got up and hugged him, his tentacles enfolded me tenderly.

"Well I guess that's one issue sorted out. You should have said something, you dumb mollusk."

"I knew you were uncertain about me and the other obstacles remain. I didn't want to press the issue. I hope you understand."

"It's fine, sweet of you actually."

I meant it. He could be so lovely.

"Thank you for thinking... OK, forget that."

He rapidly changed subject as I gave him the look.

"So back to problems. We should talk about them."

I sat back down again, feeling somewhat better about life; happy even. I had a boyfriend, wow! Maybe not a terribly traditional boyfriend, but nevertheless it had been a while. It felt nice. Of course we should talk, but another thought began to force itself to the front of my mind. I do get so easily distracted.

"So if we are boyfriend and girlfriend now, I think we need to memorialize the event. How about a celebratory fuck?"

David's body flushed with bands of flowing, undulating color. His tentacles quivered. He seemed to approve of my suggestion. I had an idea.

"I'd like to see the stars, David. Can we go to the bridge?"

The bridge was a large room in the center of the ship. It's plan was close to semi-circular, with a tall, curved wall at the front and a straight one, including the entrance way, to the rear.

I walked and David floated into it. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my socks in preparation.

"Alexa! External view, 360°."

The two walls, ceiling and floor all became a deep space starscape. And people said I wasn't a romantic.

"I want you, David. And you can make it rough. I want the full experience."

Well, there were limits to romance, I guess.

David didn't need to be asked twice. Tentacles elongated and swarmed towards me. The first found the zipper on my work overalls and pulled it down. Two others eased the garment off my shoulders. As I stepped out of it, my ankles were gripped by his sinuous limbs and held tight. Two others wound round my wrists. He moved his tentacles outwards, spreading my arms and legs. I stood there in my T-shirt and boy shorts unable to move. Not wanting to.

A further tentacle snaked towards me. Stopping just short of my abdomen, the tip morphed into sheers. Snip! Snip! Snip! And my undergarments were in tatters on the floor. Leaving me naked. Leaving me vulnerable. Leaving me totally in his power. The final preparatory action. The same limb returned to its normal shape, wrapped itself round my neck and constricted. David knew how liked it. God, I wanted him to fuck me.